A messaging environment includes many forms of files and transmission mediums for transmitting audio messages and other forms of audio, such as music downloads, mailbox messages, and interactive voice response (IVR) systems, to name several. More recently, increased transmission bandwidth and robust device capabilities have made video messaging feasible for personal handset devices. Many protocols, encoding schemes and transport mechanisms exist for both audio and video data, defining a varied landscape of possible paths for communication. Further, the multitude of user devices, and particularly of personal handsets, provide a dizzying array of capabilities to consider when serving video. Accordingly, some video transmission mechanisms have not encountered widespread popularity, and the disparity of devices available, along with a plurality of underlying networks (i.e. 2G and 3G wireless networks) presents a multitude of processing complexities to be considered when establishing video communications between users.
Modern encoding formats strive for flexibility. While some may have emerged directed to a particular type of transmission (i.e. audio, video, text, data, etc), many represent multiple types or are at least evolving to support additional types. For example, the so-called Short Message Service (SMS) is a text messaging system widely deployed on mobile phones around the world. A richer service, Multimedia Message Service (MMS) has been defined and is being deployed in some areas, however MMS has not been widely adopted. MMS supports voice, image and video messages (or combinations thereof). Several problems have contributed to the slow adoption of MMS including, lack of interoperability between operators' networks, inadequate speed on 2G networks to handle video from 3G handsets, and lack of consistent capabilities between 2G and 3G handsets.